


2020 isn't a fun year

by victoryhonorfame



Category: Alex Rider - Anthony Horowitz
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Yassen Gregorovich Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-15
Updated: 2020-07-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,109
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25289671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/victoryhonorfame/pseuds/victoryhonorfame
Summary: Fires, riots and pandemics - but at least he has some company in quarantine, right? Loosely within the universe created by pongnosis in A Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Spyfest 2020 prompt: Quarantined and bored. A deadly combination.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 53
Collections: Spyfest 2020





	2020 isn't a fun year

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10222295) by [pongnosis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pongnosis/pseuds/pongnosis). 



Alex was _bored_. 2020 was a terrible year. He was also far, far too old for this.

Well, the tail end of 2019 had been shit too- the Hong Kong protests and Australian bush fires had both been raging for months at that point, wrecking economies and forcing governments to pay particularly close attention to some Scorpia outfits in the East. He _might_ have been helping the protesters in Hong Kong with some of his own money being channeled back through Scorpia to arm and educate the protestors, so that was possibly fair.

But those fires were nothing to do with him. At all. No more global world ending terrorism here. He’d stopped all that when he took the reins from Yassen almost a decade before.

Might have helped with the Iran riots though.

But not the strike on the Iranian general. That was just Trump. Whoever let him in power… And then he’d tried to help get Trump impeached but that had failed because apparently the Americans really are _that stupid_.

Or Brexit- that hadn’t been his doing either. That would have actually been good for business, but bad for the UK and he had a fondness still for where he’d once called home. Even if he couldn’t set foot there again.

And then that bloody virus. He’d spent most of February tearing through the ranks checking and double checking it wasn’t one of theirs. And then checking it wasn’t China’s. Or Russia’s. Definitely wasn’t Trumps, he doesn’t even understand what a virus _is._

It wasn’t that big of a deal when it was just in China. That happened every few years, the Chinese just quashed any mention of new viruses and hauled all the infected off to be ‘treated.’ They’d dropped the ball on this one. Once it got a foothold in Italy, well. The cat was well and truly out of the bag, even if China denied it all.

Borders were closing left, right and centre, future operations were being halted, in-progress ones were being cancelled whilst half the planet initiated lockdowns and curfews. Scorpia was on war footing, minimising losses here, exploiting new avenues there. And then midway through March, the risk assessment team had recommended he stay on the _Bucephalus_ indefinitely just to be ‘on the safe side.’ Yassen had even reappeared briefly to check in and confirm that Alex needed to do exactly that, and that Anabelle would deal with any issues on the ground.

And now he was stuck in quarantine. In his suite on his yacht, yes, but quarantined. For the last _five_ weeks.

Because some blithering idiot in the crew decided to sneak off the boat and swim to shore to smooch with the locals _during a global pandemic,_ and now the damned virus was on the yacht, and until everyone was isolated for two weeks with no symptoms this wouldn’t end, but they couldn’t isolate everyone and leave the yacht unguarded. So every few days someone else presented with symptoms or tested positive and got isolated, and the clocks reset.

That imbecile who caused all this was already swimming with the fishes, but it didn’t particularly make anyone feel better. Maybe they should have kept him around for stress relief...

The worst part wasn’t the quarantine, actually.

It was the surly pre-teen in the second bedroom adjoining his suite. Who kept also getting bored. And attempting to escape. And now Alex was spending every twelve hours in shifts with Jack trying to keep his daughter from using every skill they’d taught her to slip past him, through five different layers of security on the doors and windows, the armed guards in the hallways and the myriad of cameras and sensors throughout the yacht.

Her last attempt had cut off the internet access for the entire boat. And that was why he was bored. He’d already finished all the work he could do without access to the network, two workouts, given his unruly brat a lecture on knowing exactly _which_ wire she was cutting _before_ she cut it, ordered a new system to give network redundancies so this couldn’t happen again, and a couple hours of Portuguese practice. In the last month he’d already exhausted all the books on the shelves, completed eight different puzzle and sudoku apps and worked hallway through a mandarin colouring book for adults.

This was getting desperate. He wouldn’t be back online until they got a delivery from the mainland in approximately eight hours and 32 minutes. Not that he was counting. He was just _that bored._

The door to his bedroom opened and Jack stumbled out, stretching and peering at him groggily. “My phone isn’t connect-“

“She cut the network wires. By accident.”

Jack stopped dead and stared at him before sighing and moving to the coffee maker. “Not even you caused this much trouble. Although, there was that night when you were nine and I wanted to watch Halloween without you so you tripped all the fuses…”

Alex’s phone rang. Anabelle. At least the phone networks were still running.

“So, I heard on the grapevine you had some connectivity issues.” Alex glared at the wall.

“Your daughter-“

“Mmmhmmm, she’s your daughter too. In fact, I believe it was you who taught her to destroy things if in doubt. I’m kind of surprised she hasn’t set the place on fire to be honest.”

“Well maybe you shouldn’t have taught her how to sneak tranq’s in everyone’s drinks.”

“I’d have gone for poison personally, sedatives are more your tricks.”

“Alex, whilst your relationship issues are entertaining, your daughter isn’t in her room.” Jack was standing by the porthole watching the ocean below, sipping her coffee. He scrambled to join her, the phone still clutched to his ear. There she was. Floating in the ocean below them. She saw them and waved cheekily. Jack grinned and slapped him on the shoulder. “God I’m glad she’s yours not mine. I’d need more coffee to deal with that. Good luck!”

The answering giggle from the phone told him Anabelle had heard every word. “Well this was hilarious, but I’d better get back to work. Lots to do while you’re on your holiday!”

“I’m not on fucking-“

She’d hung up already. He thumped his head against the window.

Well, at least he wasn’t bored anymore. Clearly he had a child to wrangle. And to figure out how she’d gotten out _again._ From an empty locked room that he had searched only six hours ago.

Not for the first time, he cursed the Rider luck. Clearly it had been inherited. As well as the inability to stay out of trouble.


End file.
